To Face Unafraid, the Plans That We Made
by imaagine4ever
Summary: In which Lily's not on the best terms with her extended family, but she has James to make her day a bit brighter. Even if it does involve getting him untangled from strings of Christmas lights. Fluff, even if it doesn't seem like it at the beginning.


Being a witch, Lily Potter had had many interesting experiences, to say the least, with her family, especially around the holiday season. Although her parents were infatuated with the idea of a _witch in the family_ , and her sister was openly set against it, the rest of her family wasn't as clearly categorized. Grandpa Bob had shaken out his ear trumpet with a bewildered look dusting over his red facial features, Aunt Mary had nearly fallen out of her chair, and her little cousin Juliana stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, dropping the lollipop she was eating right onto the carpet.

The unanimous reaction amongst those select few family members her parents had boasted to was _confusion._ Witches? Didn't they adorn black robes, have green and warty skin, and fly around on broomsticks in the dead of night, cackling maniacally? Didn't they have secret lairs where they concocted potions clandestinely? Didn't they have black cats and broken mirrors and ravens with glossy black feathers? And besides, they didn't exist, did they? That was surely just a myth told to scare children. There was no way Lily, with her smooth and dewy skin, laughing green eyes, and vibrant red hair could ever be a witch.

To be completely honest, Lily had gone beyond caring. As she learned at the age of 11, looking for approval from everyone you encountered was bound to fail. Not everyone would agree with your choices or who you were, and there was no use in wasting time hoping for everyone to like you.

That didn't mean, however, that Lily wasn't affected by cruelty. Her biggest strength and weakness was her emotions, her love. She was strong, but even her heart fell victim to twinges of pain every now and then when a few people in her family called her a freak, an abomination. When she was about 16, it became a bit too much, meaning she stormed out of a Christmas family dinner after accidentally spattering her magic-phobic aunt and uncle with mashed potatoes and gravy (that she somehow managed to turn purple). She'd rarely lost control like that before, and it slightly scared her. From that point, she vowed to only speak to the disapproving sides of her family when she absolutely needed to. They were related to her, but that didn't mean that she owed anything to them or that she was obligated to love them.

And so, she barely spoke to them for 3 years. Her contact was limited to those members of her family she could stand; she didn't have time for the rude ones.

* * *

And then, James came along. They had finally started dating in their 7th year of school, once he'd grown up a little and gotten his head properly deflated. The few times James asked about her extended family, or even about her sister (and her disgusting fiancé, Vernon), Lily pretended not to hear, diverted the question, or threatened to throttle him.

Of course James had met her parents by the time they were 18; it would be unthinkable to keep her boyfriend a secret. And because Petunia did indeed live with them, she too found about her "freak" sister's "freak" boyfriend.

Lily was adamant in avoiding the rest of the family – even if some of them did support her as a witch, she feared that things would become too complicated if she introduced that she was dating someone just like her.

She'd underestimated how hardheaded James was. When they were 19 years old, and Christmas was approaching, Lily was decorating their small apartment in tinsel and fairy lights. James sprawled out on the sofa, exhausted from Auror duty.

"Lily?" he mumbled.

"Mm?"

"When am I going to meet your family?"

Lily froze in the process of placing a star on their very tiny tree. _Why was he bringing this up again?_ "You've already met my family."

"Not talking about your mum and dad and sis," he said, rolling over onto his stomach. "I'm talking about your aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone else."

Lily swallowed dryly. "James, I really don't think that's a good id–"

"Why not, Lils? They'll love me!" He rolled off the sofa completely, a cheeky smirk on his face.

"They're… they're not… they're just… difficult," Lily stuttered.

The smirk slid off of James's face. "Is it because I'm a wizard?"  
"More because I'm a witch." A heavy silence filled the air between them. "I was meaning to tell you, actually," Lily continued, "my mum wrote me the other day. She asked if I could come to a family get-together for Christmas, and I was going to tell her I couldn't make it, but if you really want to see them, we can go."

James frowned. "I'd love to see them, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

Lily smiled. "It's okay. And besides, you never know. People change."

"Still, I don't think we should use magic while we're there."

"Of course not," Lily agreed. Still, concern ate away at her thoughts. The last thing she wanted was to feel terrible on Christmas.

* * *

James and Lily had Apparated to her parents' house (no sense in not using magic when there were no Muggle relatives around to see you use it) and stood on the front porch. Lily had already warned James: no talking about the wizarding world, and the only reason for either of them to acknowledge its existence was if someone asked them straightforwardly. She was determined to make this at least somewhat successful.

 _Ding dong_. James rang the bell and smiled at her, taking her hand in his.

Lily's mother opened the door, wearing a green velvet dress with a white apron. She gasped when she saw James and Lily. "You made it!" she exclaimed, gathering both of them in a giant hug. She fixed her hair with fluttering hands. "Come in, come in, dears, everyone's already here." She ushered them in.

Lily took a deep breath and stepped through the door. She approached the parlor and saw her aunt, uncle, grandparents, and three of her cousins sitting on the armchairs. "Hi," she said in a small voice.

There was a heavy silence. Behind her, Lily could hear her mother clear her throat awkwardly. "Why don't you introduce James, dear?" she asked quietly.

"Oh, yeah," Lily said, feeling stupid. "This is James, my, um, my boyfriend."

Another uncomfortable pause. "That's wonderful, dear," her grandmother said, smiling slightly. "It's lovely to meet you, James. Please, sit down."

They obliged, sitting on a nearby loveseat.

 _Okay_ , Lily thought, _thirty seconds in and nothing too bad has happened yet._

"So are you magic like her, then?" asked one of her cousins. His mother swatted his arm. "What? Just asking."

James shot a scared look at Lily, who nodded to tell him that it was okay to answer. "Um, y-yeah. We went to school together."

"That so called 'wizard school' of yours?" interjected her uncle.

"Dave–" her mother started to say.

"I'm sorry, Rose, but I think the idea itself is preposterous!"

Lily closed her eyes. They hadn't even made it five minutes. She buried her face in her hands to avoid the growing argument between her mother and uncle.

James placed his hand on her shoulder. They'd stay here, they'd ride out the storm, as they always did.

* * *

Things took a turn for the bizarre later that night. Lily tossed and turned in her bed, having one of those nights when everything seems to hit you all at once and you just feel like crying. At around midnight, she heard a loud crash from downstairs.

Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, Lily quickly jumped out of bed and padded softly downstairs, a hand placed over her wand just in case. She entered the living room, where the light was already on, and took a couple of moments to absorb the scene in front of her.

Her stupid boyfriend, James Potter, had somehow managed to tangle himself in fairy lights.

He stood upright next to the Christmas tree, and an empty box that presumably once contained Christmas decorations was open next to him. And he was pretty much wrapped head to toe in unlit Christmas lights.

There were many things that one could do in this case, including calling for help, or asking if the other person was okay.

But Lily, being the amazing person she was, started to laugh, which caught James by surprise and made him fall over, which in turn caused Lily to laugh even louder. "Lilyyyyy," he whined, "stop laughing at me. It's not funny!"

"It is," she said, wiping her eyes. "How'd you even manage to do this, you idiot?"

"Your mum said it was really sad she couldn't put up the fairy lights on the tree – there just wasn't enough time – so I thought I'd do it and we agreed that we wouldn't use magic so I tried to do it the Muggle way and this happened."

Lily didn't even know how to respond to that, but she felt herself grinning widely just because it was such a _James_ thing to do. He thought he was the bloody epitome of gallantry, and he'd go and do something like this to prove it, but his natural awkwardness would kick in and he'd end up in the strangest situations as a result. "I'm not helping you," she said.

"Well how am I supposed to get out of here, then?" James asked.

"Figure it out," she said sternly, but there was a twinkle of laughter in her eye.

"Lilyyyyy."

"Jaaaaames."

He stuck out his lower lip and pouted at her, widening his hazel eyes.

Lily snorted. "Is that supposed to be a puppy dog face?"

"Isn't it working?"

"You look absolutely mental."

He scowled. "This is cruel and unusual punishment." He squirmed around on the floor for a little, trying to get his arms untangled, but he managed to tie himself up even more.

Lily watched him for a good 10 minutes before she started to feel the tiniest bit sorry for him, so she caved and walked over to him, trying to untie the knots. And it would have worked, if not for James' complete unwillingness to move.

"James, you need to cooperate a little bit. Try to roll over."

"Ughhhhh."

"James, for Merlin's sake. I will leave you here and go up to bed, don't you think for a moment that I won't."

"You wouldn't do that," James muttered.

"Wouldn't I?"

He went silent.

"Now stop complaining and move your arms – no, no, the other way – see, now you've gone and tied yourself up even more." Lily sighed. "You know what, just don't move."

Around 2 AM, she finally managed to get him out of the fairy lights.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "How do Muggles even put those things up?"

"That is not the question you should be asking," Lily said, flexing her fingers to try to get rid of all the cricks in them. "Were you using them as a damn jump rope or something?"

"I was _trying_ ," he said, in what he obviously thought was a dignified manner, "to put them up for your dear old mum. Everything would have been a whole lot easier with magic."

"How about you leave the Christmas decorations to me?"

James smiled crookedly. "Deal."

Lily beamed back at him. Yeah, her family might have been awful, but at least she had this dork.

* * *

 **What? Imaagine4ever is writing again? Yeah I'm back.**

 **Hello everyone! Merry Christmas! Whatever you celebrate and regardless of whether you ignore the existence of Christmas, see it as a cultural holiday, or see it as a religious one, I hope you're having a fantastic day.**

 **Okay I saw this adorable Christmas AU prompt by Tumblr user otpmusings, and I had to write it. Plus, I realized I'd never done a legit** _ **Harry Potter**_ **fanfic that wasn't crossed over with something else. I deviated quite a bit from the actual prompt, which was** **"** **'I found you crying on the floor tangled in a bunch of Christmas lights so now I'm desperately trying to get you out but you're not helping me at all you're just sitting there complaining and sobbing omg' au."**

 **Hope you enjoyed! All feedback is very much appreciated :D**


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